Part IV. Problem of Sources of Ceremonial and Myth 



It is only during the last half century that the Bagobo have 

 come to the knowledge of the western world. We do not know how 

 early they came into contact with the Chinese^ but Dr. Laufer, S33 

 who has made a careful investigation of those Chinese sources which 

 contain accounts of the Philippines, mentions no Chinese record of 

 the wild tribes of Mindanao. 



When we turn to the Spanish writers, we find as early as 1521 

 descriptions of the Filipino and of the Moro peoples, 384 and from 

 the end of the sixteenth until the close of the nineteenth century 

 the work of the priests progressed in Mindanao ; yet for some time there 

 is no mention of Bila-an or of Kulaman, of Tagakaola or of Ba- 

 gobo. Although as early as 1546 Saint Francis Xavier 385 preached 

 in .Mindanao; although missions were established on this island by 

 the Jesuits in 1596, 38C and by the Recollects in 1622 j 38 ' although 

 in 1655 the number of christianized natives under the care of Jes- 

 uits and Recollects in Mindanao was reported 388 to have reached 

 70, 000, the mountain tribes of the southeast were not known to 

 the missionaries until two centuries later. It was along the coast 

 line from the northeast to the southwest, and in the immediately 

 adjoining territory of the interior that their numerous churches and 

 convents were established. One may search in vain the maps of the 

 early cartographers for any place-names along the gulf of Davao. 

 Fven fairly detailed maps such as that by Sanson d'Abbeville, 38 ° 



383 Cf. "The Relations of the Chinese to the Philippine Islands." Smithsonian Miscel- 

 laneous Collections (Quarterly issue), vol. 50, p. 248—284. 1907. 



2ttk Sec Hj,air and Robertson: op. cil., vol. 33 — 31; vol. 41, et cetera. 



»•• Cf. ibid., vol. 27, pp. 300, 304. 1905. 



»•• Cf. ibid., vol. 28, p. 340. 1905. See also vol. 41, p. 284. 1906. 



38 ' Cf. ibid., vol. 21, pp. 214—233 el seq., 302 et seq. 1905, See also vol. 13, pp. 

 48, 86. 1904. See also vol. 28, pp. 340, 344. 1905. See also vol. 41, pp. 137— 1">7. 



300 Cf. ibid., vol. 36, p. 57. 1906. 



389 See ibid., vol. 27, pp. 74—75. 1905. 



